Kerrey: Senator Clinton Will Be More Powerful Than Ever

Eliot Brown asked the New School’s president (and former senator), Bob Kerrey, yesterday about Hillary Clinton’s standing when, assuming she doesn’t end up on the Democratic ticket this year, she returns to the Senate. In Kerrey’s assessment, “She will be immeasurably more capable and more powerful.”

Here’s some of Kerrey’s explanation:

“Here’s what she’s going to have going back in. She’s campaigned in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico—nobody in the Senate will have that claim. She’ll know those states exceptionally well, she’ll have an e-mail and mailing list in those states that are at least as good as the people who actually represent them. So she’s going to have the capacity to debate and participate in the legislative action much more than she ever did before. Even more than Ted Kennedy.

"I mean, Teddy didn’t campaign in all 50 states. The fact that she’s been in all 50 states is what’s impressive. She’s got a base of support in every single state, so let’s say now I’m Bob Kerrey and I supported Barack Obama, and I’m running for reelection in Nebraska, and it’s a three-point race—top of my list, in terms of getting me elected, is Hillary Clinton.”